by Meredith Smalley TROUT LAKE STATION — While most projects at the University of Wisconsin’s Trout Lake Station put their boats into lakes to perform research, one project team heads into the forests surrounding lakes for their data collection. Paul Schilke, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is looking at how aquatic insects …
Last Wednesday, your trusty blogger accompanied Center for Limnology post doc, Peter Levi, as he headed to Milwaukee for his research on what is, frankly, an under-served ecosystem in limnological circles – the urban river. Most metropolitan areas have a sordid history with their rivers. The waterways that first made them appealing for settlement, soon …
by Meredith Smalley BOULDER JUNCTION, Wis. — The first of August was a gorgeous day in northern Wisconsin: temperatures were in the mid-70s, the waters of Trout Lake were remarkably calm and clear, and the mosquitoes, for the first time this summer, were nowhere to be found. It was the perfect day for Trout Lake Station‘s …
In case you missed the news the last couple of days, around 400,000 residents of the city of Toledo, Ohio were advised to completely avoid the city’s drinking water thanks to a bloom of a cyanobacteria (often called blue-green algae) called microcystis. The bloom occurred in Lake Erie, where Toledo gets its water supply. Microcystis …
by Meredith Smalley Here at Trout Lake Station, the bog walk is a revered and cherished opportunity. Any chance to tromp around in our boots is a welcome break from the bogged-down schedule of daily routine. Beginning with a jaunt to Crystal Bog, I tagged along with a group of graduate students from UW–Madison as they …
Followers of this blog will know that Soloman David, the post-doctoral researcher we share with the Shedd Aquarium, is an unapologetic lover of prehistoric fish and a whiz with a GoPro camera. For this Friday, he sent in a recent encounter with a bowfin. Bowfin (also known as dogfish or mudfish) are a truly remarkable …
We’re a little late in featuring this wonderfully done piece from QUEST, a group of six public media outfits from across the country, collaborating to provide an in-depth look at the science of sustainability. But here is a great introduction to the Yahara 2070 scenarios. To learn more about the scenarios, you can check out …
by Meredith Smalley Hello there! I’m Meredith Smalley, and I’ll spend this summer writing about my experience working as the summer outreach intern and living at the University of Wisconsin-Trout Lake Station in Boulder Junction, WI. I hope I can use this opportunity to share what I discover during my short stay in the Northwoods …
Limnology, unfortunately, can’t always be about the fieldwork. For every sunny day spent out on a boat in a lake, weeks and months pile up as our students and faculty retreat back to the lab and their computers to try to make sense of all the data they’ve collected. Even though she’s only an undergrad, …
This summer, Trout Lake Station hosted it’s 2nd annual artist-in-residence – painter, Helen Klebesadel. The program hopes to create collaborative art and science projects focusing on the long-term ecology of lakes. Below is Helen’s recap of her time “up north.” I have just returned from a splendid ten days of non-stop plein air painting (and …